Today's News

A Santa Fe physician, also the founder and medical director of New Mexico MedWorks, Urgent Care Santa Fe, Los Alamos Urgent Care and Valley First Care in Española, is facing additional charges as the result of his arrest last May.

Richard Lieberman, 63, was indicted last month with a second-degree felony drug-trafficking count as well as the misdemeanor charge of patronizing a prostitute, according to his attorney Peter Schoenburg.

The attorney said the added charge had been a possibility since the beginning.

When asked about the trafficking charge, Schoenburg said all that is required in the statute is that there is a transfer of the drug between two people.

“If you smoke something and hand it to somebody else, it’s considered trafficking,” Schoenberg said. “It’s the broadest interpretation of the law.

Schoenburg said Tuesday that Lieberman will enter a not guilty plea. He said Lieberman enrolled in an out-of-state residential treatment facility weeks after his arrest in May and has another two months left as part of the rehabilitation program.

"Barack knows the American Dream because he's lived it," the first lady told the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday in an address intended to reassure voters that her husband share their values — hard work, perseverance and optimism — while also drawing a contrast between him and Mitt Romney.

Mrs. Obama never mentioned the president's Republican challenger, who grew up in a world of privilege and wealth.

But the point was clear as she weaved a tapestry of their early years together, when money was tight and times were tough, when they were "so in love, and so in debt." She reminisced about the man who now occupies the Oval Office pulling his favorite coffee table out of the trash and wearing dress shoes that were a size too small. And she told stories about a president who still takes time to eat dinner with his daughters nearly every night, answering their questions about the news and strategizing about middle-school friendships.

SANTA FE (AP) — The state Department of Health reports an improvement in immunization rates for teenagers.

About 81 percent of New Mexicans from ages 13 to 17 were covered last year by a vaccine protecting against tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough. That's up from 72 percent in 2010 and it's higher than the national rate of 78 percent.

The department offers free immunizations at public health clinics for children in families without health insurance.

Nearly 71 percent of New Mexico's teenagers had the vaccine against chickenpox last year, up from 56 percent in 2010. New Mexico was above the national coverage rate of 68 percent in 2011.

Meningococcal vaccine coverage was almost 65 percent last year, up from 53 percent in 2010 but below the national rate of 70 percent.

Black bear captured blocks from Santa Fe Plaza

SANTA FE (AP) — Conservation officers with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish have captured a black bear that wandered into the center of Santa Fe.

Albuquerque television station KOB-TV reports the bear was first spotted at about 6:30 a.m. Sunday.

A few hours later, the bear was found along the Santa Fe River, two blocks from the city's historic plaza.

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — Thirty-five years after leaving Earth, Voyager 1 is reaching for the stars.

Sooner or later, the workhorse spacecraft will bid adieu to the solar system and enter a new realm of space — the first time a manmade object will have escaped to the other side.

Perhaps no one on Earth will relish the moment more than 76-year-old Ed Stone, who has toiled on the project from the start.

"We're anxious to get outside and find what's out there," he said.

When NASA's Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 first rocketed out of Earth's grip in 1977, no one knew how long they would live. Now, they are the longest-operating spacecraft in history and the most distant, at billions of miles from Earth but in different directions.

Wednesday marks the 35th anniversary of Voyager 1's launch to Jupiter and Saturn. It is now flitting around the fringes of the solar system, which is enveloped in a giant plasma bubble. This hot and turbulent area is created by a stream of charged particles from the sun.

Outside the bubble is a new frontier in the Milky Way — the space between stars. Once it plows through, scientists expect a calmer environment by comparison.

The Los Alamos Monitor has announced a major new online partnership with Homes.com, which now makes the site available locally through LAMonitor.com.

“This partnership represents another investment the Los Alamos Monitor has made to better serve this community,” Los Alamos Monitor Publisher Keven Todd said. “There’s no question that Homes.com is a nationally recognized powerhouse in the real estate business, and we’re pleased to bring this information-packed provider to Los Alamos and Northern New Mexico through LAMonitor.com.”

Homes.com has close to three million homes for sale and rent. Each month more than 11 million consumers visit Homes.com to search for real estate by location or property type. Visitors to Homes.com can also find the value of their current home, learn more about home financing, find a real estate agent and seek answers to real estate questions through the Homes.com Questions and Answers community, according to Homes.com officials.

Usually, if someone walks into a crowded room and says loudly “we’ve got gas,” the crowd is going to quickly get away from that person.

But since it was open house night at the Los Alamos Middle School and the person doing the shouting was Los Alamos Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Gene Schmidt, the crowd cheered.

Ever since a main gas line broke at the middle school a couple of weeks ago, people were wondering if the school was going to have heated classrooms and hot food for students when winter came.

According to Schmidt, the leak was isolated Tuesday and repairs began immediately. The leak was somewhere in a thousand-foot stretch of the gas line that runs alongside the temporary classrooms.

“We found the actual leak along that section of pipe,” Schmidt said. “By this Tuesday, the students will be having hot lunch.” The middle school cafeteria also provides hot lunches to all the elementary schools, as well.

The middle school’s troubles started about two weeks ago when a subcontractor working for McCarthy Construction, the contractor in charge of renovating the school, struck a gas line with a backhoe. After doing a number of pressure tests using air to find the leak, the company found leaks in other areas of the network.